[This blog post is adapted from a comment I submitted here: https://www.regulations.gov/comment/HHS-OASH-2022-0021-4516. I’d like to thank Scott Faber and Melanie Benesh, for whose Food Justice class I originally wrote the comment, for teaching me so much about food systems in the U.S. and allowing me to really explore my interests.]

 

Food, diet, and agriculture are the collective elephant in the room when it comes to climate change. Most discussion focuses on the energy transition, but the food system globally is estimated to be responsible for up to 35% of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.[1] Animal agriculture in particular is estimated to account for 72-78% of food-related GHG emissions.[2]  Notably, the U.S. is globally the largest consumer of meat.[3] The climate effects of agriculture are expected to worsen. If current trends continue, agriculture will account for 80% of GHG emissions by 2050[4] and animal product consumption will grow by 70%.[5] Remarkably, multiple studies have shown that even if all non-food systems emissions were immediately halted, emissions from agriculture would likely cause the Earth to exceed 1.5°C of warming sometime around the middle of the century.[6] It is clearly imperative to reduce the climate impacts of food.

            The U.S. Dietary Guidelines could serve as a powerful tool in this fight. The guidelines are promulgated every five years by the Department of Agriculture (USDA) and Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and represent the official position of the federal government on nutrition.[7] The guidelines are intended to be mainly educational, but they also strongly influence food spending. Federal food aid programs such as the National School Lunch Program, the Older Americans Nutrition Services Program, and the Women, Infants and Children Food Packages are required to follow the Dietary Guidelines.[8] A variety of state-funded programs are also based on the Dietary Guidelines.[9] The Dietary Guidelines have been estimated to control over $80 billion in government spending.[10]

            Unfortunately, the most recent 2020 version of the Dietary Guidelines is utterly inadequate to meet the current climate crisis. What the guidelines show as the current U.S. average dietary pattern produces the equivalent of 3.19 kilograms of carbon dioxide each day (kg CO2 eq/day).[11] The guidelines’ suggested Healthy U.S. and Mediterranean diets produce 3.33 kg CO2 eq/day and 3.42 kg CO2 eq/day, respectively.[12] This means that mass adoption of the guidelines’ recommendations would actually increase GHG emissions from agriculture.

            The guidelines are supposed to be “based on the preponderance of the scientific and medical knowledge which is current at the time the report is prepared.”[13] Current science has successfully linked environmental and human health.[14] The Society for Nutrition Education and Behavior has officially endorsed including environmental sustainability and its relation to climate change in dietary guidance.[15] President Biden has issued two Executive Orders directing the whole of government to address climate change.[16] Despite all this, in 2022 HHS and USDA declared that climate change would not be addressed by the Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee (DGAC) that creates the recommendations which the final guidelines will be based on.[17] Instead, HHS and USDA said that they “will address this topic separate from the Committee’s process to inform work across the Departments.”[18] To this date, there has not been a clear process announced of how exactly climate change will be incorporated into the final Dietary Guidelines.

            Both the 2010 and 2015 DGACs considered certain environmental impacts of diet.[19] However, the final guidelines in both years did not contain any mention of these environmental impacts.[20] In 2015, USDA and HHS shamefully dropped the question of sustainability after public pressure by the meat industry and Republican members of Congress.[21] The most recent 2020 guidelines feature no mention of environmental concerns.[22]

Recommendations

            I propose four recommendations that USDA and HHS should consider:

1. Research the Effects that Dietary Patterns Have Upon Climate Mitigation

Diet cannot improve human health if it contributes to health-ruining climate change. Therefore, the DGAC should add the questions, “What is the relationship between population-level dietary patterns and climate change?” and “What is the optimal health balance between nutrition and climate effects of food?”

2. In the alternative, clearly explain how climate change will be incorporated into the final Dietary Guidelines.

If USDA and HHS choose to continue the existing plan to incorporate climate change through some other process instead of letting the DGAC ask climate questions, then that process should be clearly stated. If USDA and HHS opt to continue with this route, they need to provide public notice to enable the public to get involved and improve their recommendations.

3. Include a Healthy Vegan Eating Pattern in the Final 2025-2030 Dietary Guidelines.

A vegan diet causes fewer GHG emissions than any other type of diet.[23] The 2010 Dietary Guidelines included a healthy vegan diet plan, but the 2015 and 2020 editions did not.[24] The inclusion of a healthy vegan diet plan in the 2010 guidelines demonstrates that this is well within the capacity of USDA and HHS, and may encourage more people to consider a lower-GHG emitting diet.

4. Revise the Healthy American Eating Plan to Incorporate Less Meat.

As described above, animal agriculture accounts for an outsized amount of GHG emissions. While the 2020-2025 Dietary Guidelines contain some language around consuming less meat,[25] they advise consuming more than five times as much meat as plant proteins for most calorie levels, higher if seafood is included.[26] The Dietary Guidelines could be revised to recommend a higher ratio of plant-based protein, or to not recommend one protein source over another at all.

Conclusion

            It is well past time that the Dietary Guidelines factor in diet’s impact on climate. The current DGAC is taking public comments on their scientific process until October 7. If you would like to tell them that they should consider climate impacts, you can do so here: https://www.regulations.gov/docket/HHS-OASH-2022-0021/document.

 

 

[1] See Xiaming Xu et al., Global greenhouse gas emissions from animal-based foods are twice those of plant-based foods, 2 Nature Food 724, 727 (2021).

[2] Marco Springmann et al., Options for keeping the food system within environmental limits, 562 Nature 519, 520 (2018).

[3] Laurie Ristino, Green Ham and Eggs: What’s the Policy Recipe for Feeding A Growing Population on A Warming Planet?, 34 J. Land Use & Env’t. L. 267, 280 (2019).

[4] Goiuri Alberdi & Mirene Begiristain-Zubillaga, The Promotion of Sustainable Diets in the Healthcare System and Implications for Health Professionals: A Scoping Review, 13 Nutrients, 747, 748 (2021) (citing GRAIN Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy, Emissions Impossible. How Big Meat and Dairy Are Heating up the Planet (accessed on 27 November 2020), https://www.grain.org/article/entries/5976-emissions-impossible-how-big-meat-and-dairy-are-heatingup-the-planet).

[5] Catherine C. Ivanovich et al., Future warming from global food consumption, 13 Nature Climate Change 297, 299 (2023).

[6] See Michael A. Clark et al., Global food system emissions could preclude achieving the 1.5° and 2°C climate change targets, 370 Science 705 (2020).

[7] See 7 U.S.C. § 5341(a)(1).

[8] 42 U.S.C. § 1758(a)(1)(B), 1758(k)(1)(B), 1758(f)(1)(A), 1758(a)(4)(B) (School Lunch Programs); 42 U.S.C. § 3030g-21(2)(A)(i) (Nutrition Services Program); 7 C.F.R. § 246 (Women, Infants and Children (WIC) Food Packages).

[9] See, e.g. AR Code § 6-20-709(a) (2023) (Arkansas School Lunch Programs); Minn. Stat. § 17.1017(6)(b)(2) (2023) (Minnesota Good Food Access Program); N.C. Gen. Stat. § 153A-229.2(c) (North Carolina nutrition requirements for incarcerated women).

[10] Nicole Tichenor Blackstone et al., Linking sustainability to the healthy eating patterns of the

Dietary Guidelines for Americans: A modelling study, 2 Lancet Planetary Health e344, e345 (2018) (citing Merrigan K et al., Designing a sustainable diet, Science 350, 165-66 (2015); Aussenberg RA & Colello KJ, Domestic food assistance: Summary of programs, Congressional Research Service (2018), https://fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/R42353.pdf).

[11] Rose Jennings et al., Five U.S. Dietary Patterns and Their Relationship to Land Use, Water Use, and Greenhouse Gas Emissions: Implications for Future Food Security, 15 Nutrients 215, 223-24 (2023).

[12] Id.

[13] 7 U.S.C. § 5341(a)(2).

[14] See Margaret Sova McCabe, Eating for the Environment: The Potential of Dietary Guidelines to Achieve Better Human and Environmental Health Outcomes, 47 Env’t. L. 741, 753 (2017).

[15] See Donald Rose et al., Position of the Society for Nutrition Education and Behavior: The Importance of Including Environmental Sustainability in Dietary Guidance, 51 J. Nutrition Educ. & Behav. 3 (2019).

[16] Exec. Order No. 14,008, 86 Fed. Reg. 7619 (Jan. 27, 2021); Exec. Order No. 14,096, 88 Fed. Reg. 25251(a)(ii) (Apr. 21, 2023).

[17] 2025 Dietary Guidelines Advisory Comm., Proposed Scientific Questions (2022), https://www.dietaryguidelines.gov/sites/default/files/2022-07/Proposed%20Scientific%20Questions_508c_Final.pdf.

[18] Id.

[19] See Dietary Guidelines Advisory Comm., Report of the Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee on the Dietary Guidelines for Americans, 2010, to the Secretary of Agriculture and the Secretary of Health and Human Services(2010), 55, https://www.dietaryguidelines.gov/sites/default/files/2019-05/2010DGACReport-camera-ready-Jan11-11.pdf; Dietary Guidelines Advisory Comm., Scientific Report of the 2015 Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee: Advisory Report to the Secretary of Health and Human Services and the Secretary of Agriculture, 238, 288 (2015), https://health.gov/sites/default/files/2019-09/Scientific-Report-of-the-2015-Dietary-Guidelines-Advisory-Committee.pdf.

[20] See U.S. Dep’t of Agric. & U.S. Dep’t of Health & Hum. Serv., Dietary Guidelines for Americans, 2010, 7^thEdition (2010), https://www.dietaryguidelines.gov/sites/default/files/2019-05/DietaryGuidelines2010.pdf; U.S. Dep’t of Health and Hum. Serv. & U.S. Dep’t of Agric., 2015–2020 Dietary Guidelines for Americans, 8th Edition (2015), https://health.gov/sites/default/files/2019-09/2015-2020_Dietary_Guidelines.pdf.

[21] Marina Bolotnikova, How US government diet guidelines ignore the climate crisis, The Guardian (Aug. 26, 2022, 6:00 AM), https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/aug/26/usda-diet-guide-myplate-climate-crisis

[22] Id.

[23] See Jennings et al., supra note 11, at 224.

[24] U.S. Dep’t Of Agric. & U.S. Dep’t Of Health & Hum. Serv., supra note 19, at 82 (2010 Guidelines).

[25] U.S. Dep’t of Agric. & U.S. Dep’t of Health and Hum Serv., Dietary Guidelines for Americans, 2020-2025, 9^thEdition (2020), 33-34, https://www.dietaryguidelines.gov/sites/default/files/2021-03/Dietary_Guidelines_for_Americans-2020-2025.pdf.

[26] Id. at 81.